Continental Mills - RapidReconciler

About the Client

For over 83 years Continental Mills has specialized in the global production and distribution of dry mix bakery goods including pancake, waffle, cookie, bread mixes as well as a variety of other products such as lawn, garden, pet, health, and personal care products. Headquartered in Kent, Washington near Seattle, Continental Mills employs approximately 1,000 workers and has additional manufacturing and distribution locations in Kansas, Kentucky, and Illinois. The new 190,000 square-foot Effingham, Illinois facility provides even greater production opportunities as it makes use of its more reliable and efficient systems.

Challenges the Client Faced

Over 7 years ago, Derrick Turner, Senior Manager – Plant Finance, and his team were investing lots of unnecessary time reconciling inventory, spending upwards of ten hours each month. As part of their process, they would need to export data from JD Edwards into Access and Excel to research and analyze in order to reconcile. In addition, they would spent a few hours addressing issues throughout the month. Despite their best efforts, Continental Mills had little confidence using their inventory valuation reports. Lack of detail meant significant difficulty identifying the root cause of many issues and therefore they could not be prevented from recurring. After completing the reconciliation procedures there were often high levels of variance to be allocated, but determining the proper locations to charge was impossible.

GSI's Solution

Derrick was very impressed with RapidReconciler®’s results after implementing 7 years ago. “With RapidReconciler®, we now have 100% confidence in the integrity of our inventory valuations for our financials. We absolutely could not be effective without it. Our auditors are very comfortable with our inventory valuations and the tool has excellent roll forward capabilities to assist in the audit process.” Derrick went on the say, “Not only did RapidReconciler® restore confidence in our inventory valuations, we were also able to easily identify the root cause of issues and put the proper processes and procedures in place to prevent future occurrences. We were able to immediately address various operator errors, setup and system issues. As an added bonus, we have been able to reduce our time reconciling inventory monthly by 60%, as well as keep ahead of any issues during the month. We can also properly charge locations for any variances.”